HOH Top Goaltenders of All Time Preliminary Discussion Thread

[Killion]

all you need is games played... you don't need anything else....and you can do it if you like.

... thats not enough, games played, basic stats, avg size of players etc. You need specifics. Hardcore. Youd require a broad & far reaching range of criteria & components to accurately gauge what common sense and experience can tell you with far greater accuracy in a fraction of the time it would take you to formulate even the foundations for such an exercise. And even when completed, wide open to challenge. Its just futile to even contemplate such a thing. I mean, how long is a piece of string?

 

[seventieslord]

... thats not enough, games played, basic stats, avg size of players etc. You need specifics. Hardcore. Youd require a broad & far reaching range of criteria & components to accurately gauge what common sense and experience can tell you with far greater accuracy in a fraction of the time it would take you to formulate even the foundations for such an exercise. And even when completed, wide open to challenge. Its just futile to even contemplate such a thing. I mean, how long is a piece of string?

so even if there was hard data backing it up, it would be wide open to challenge and futile to even contemplate. What does that say about the theory when there is no hard data and it's just a hunch?

 

[Master_Of_Districts]

Size considerations.

Seriously - ****ing prove it.

 

[Sanf]

I couldn´t make a list. Never done any kind of rankings so I had to start from zero and I had very limited time.

The more I think about it, if I sat down to figure it out, the sea could very well be 60-160. He's probably there.

I think that the "sea" started bit earlier somewhere in 45-50. I´m kind of disapointed at myself that I couldn´t defend earlier european goalies (well my english skills hold me back a lot too). When I looked my big list I had the feeling that no way they are going to have a chance. Now when I look it there are so many various cases to make from the big group. Maybe bit far fetched but still. On the other hand the feeling that am I really now thinking all time greats or just good goalies started from the same point.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Coaches have access to team in house stats, trainer reports, medical reports,witness pre game morning skates, warm-ups, in game updates, etc. First hand in game observations, spotter and asst coach contributions.

Suggest some one who is better placed to determine player performance and influencing factors better than coaches. On the other hand not all coaches may determine equally well.

That's the point.

Mike Keenan was watching Hasek in practice every day and saw no need to play him at all. Was he a moron?

Coaches also want to save their own jobs.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Cost/Benefit

That's the point.

Mike Keenan was watching Hasek in practice every day and saw no need to play him at all. Was he a moron?

Coaches also want to save their own jobs.

1.)Cost/benefit of replacing Ed Belfour.

2.)Keenan was watching a Dominik Hasek before the lighter synthetic pads changed goaltending, not the second half nineties Hasek who had adapted very well to the lighter pads.

Dominik Hasek was/is 6'1" tall but relatively light at 166 lbs.

Dominik Hasek had an advanced appreciation of the vertical side of hockey goaltending. Taco could provide a detailed explanation about the vertical aspect of goaltending. The lighter synthetice goalie pads allowed Hasek greater speed and freedom of movement and mobility. Important factors for his game.

Other goalies used the lighter equipment to gain an advantage for their game. Some became Michelin Men - Garth Snow, others improvised to suit their physique, technique - emphasizing strengths and compensating for weaknesses.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

True - I'll paint with an overly-broad brush here, but Hasek was the goaltender in league history with the best understanding of the vertical angles. He still gets called lucky to this day, but you aren't lucky for as many years as he's been "lucky".

His intuition and understanding of the vertical angles was undoubtedly helped by lighter, better equipment. It allowed him to play closer to the ice (there's alot of similarity between his base stance and Sawchuk's "gorilla" crouch, but then again, Sawchuk was a badass/nutjob). With the better gear, he could take advantage of those vertical angles (since 99% of the time, the puck starts on the ice and has to travel in a upwards-facing cone to go into the net).

And although Reggie Lemelin pioneered the synthetic pads in the NHL, it took a few years for the "Aeroflex revolution" to permeate the rest of the league.

 

[Nalyd Psycho]

Also.

1. At the time, Belfour was the best goalie in the NHL.
2. Hasek was always a groove oriented goalie. He needed to play a lot and face a lot of shots to really be at his best. So playing spot duty as a back-up and in practice would simply not show him at his best.

 

[Killion]

so even if there was hard data backing it up, it would be wide open to challenge and futile to even contemplate. What does that say about the theory when there is no hard data and it's just a hunch?

Thats a fair question; a Puckmetrician will work within a conceptual pardigm that strongly influences the way in which they both see & interpret data. Due to the completely random nature of the game of hockey, ad hoc hypotheses are created by said practioners to compensate, which results in erroneous conclusions, falsification. The Puckmetrician then going to great lengths to defend their heterodoxical theories.

Mathematics & statistical data allows for elegant & economical statement, however, when a pardigm or model upon which conclusions are based is fundamentally flawed, the theorist then proceeding to argue against naturalists & holistic members here on the History of Hockey Board, telling us that their flawed theories supercede our own observations & experiences, that either individually or collectively our Empirical & Intuitive Knowledge is faulty, suffering from biases, a lack of objectivity & therefore intellectually deceitful, well, thats just the height of hypocrisy, arrogance. Ive always pretty much rejected the Quine-Putnam Indispensability argument of Mathematical Realism. Prefer to rely on real life experiences, my own eyes & ears.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

The problem, of course, is that neither "eyes" nor "stats" are perfect. Which is why I prefer to use them together.

 

[Killion]

^^^ Indeed. Complimentary. Or at least should be.

 

[Iain Fyffe]

... thats not enough, games played, basic stats, avg size of players etc. You need specifics. Hardcore. Youd require a broad & far reaching range of criteria & components to accurately gauge what common sense and experience can tell you with far greater accuracy in a fraction of the time it would take you to formulate even the foundations for such an exercise. And even when completed, wide open to challenge. Its just futile to even contemplate such a thing. I mean, how long is a piece of string?

Why is it that the requests for specificity in this forum tend to be so vague?

Mathematics & statistical data allows for elegant & economical statement, however, when a pardigm or model upon which conclusions are based is fundamentally flawed, the theorist then proceeding to argue against naturalists & holistic members here on the History of Hockey Board, telling us that their flawed theories supercede our own observations & experiences, that either individually or collectively our Empirical & Intuitive Knowledge is faulty, suffering from biases, a lack of objectivity & therefore intellectually deceitful, well, thats just the height of hypocrisy, arrogance.

It is, in the very rare cases that it actually happens. I fear your theoretical theoretician is shaped rather like a windmill.

 

[Killion]

I fear your theoretical theoretician is shaped rather like a windmill.

.... Cervantes' much Iain? That really is just too rich. Brilliant.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Underappreciated

True - I'll paint with an overly-broad brush here, but Hasek was the goaltender in league history with the best understanding of the vertical angles. He still gets called lucky to this day, but you aren't lucky for as many years as he's been "lucky".

His intuition and understanding of the vertical angles was undoubtedly helped by lighter, better equipment. It allowed him to play closer to the ice (there's alot of similarity between his base stance and Sawchuk's "gorilla" crouch, but then again, Sawchuk was a badass/nutjob). With the better gear, he could take advantage of those vertical angles (since 99% of the time, the puck starts on the ice and has to travel in a upwards-facing cone to go into the net).

And although Reggie Lemelin pioneered the synthetic pads in the NHL, it took a few years for the "Aeroflex revolution" to permeate the rest of the league.

Taco is referring to the best mathematical analysis the I have seen referenced since joining this board. He is not painting with a broad brush but seriously understating his own work in a concise and interesting fashion.He has left out many interesting details and examples.

Hockey is played in the vertical and horizontal plane, perpendicular to each other. Taco has described Hasek's style briefly but he has left out some very interesting details.

Hasek was the best goalie that I have seen in well over fifty years in the adjustments to the handedness of the shooter. I do not recall Hasek being beaten by a log, unscreened shot simple because he did not adjust to the handedness of the shooter, losing his angle. Another interesting attribute was Hasek's ability to adjust to the handedness of the offensive player or the handedness of his defensive players. Watching him play with Mike Peca - RHS on the ice was an experience. Offensive centers especially LHS were neutralized.

This brings us to the Horizontal Plane and the "handedness issue",

Handedness determines the horizontals angles and the resulting vertical angles that players create. Should be obvious to anyone with a basic geometry background. Johnny Bower was the best goalie at the poke check that I have ever seen. His ability to adjust to the handedness of the shooter and slide the goalie stick along the ice was amazing. At the same time, Bower also appreciated the vertical angles involved since I do not recall a chipped puck over his poke check creating a goal. Two unique goalies. Whether these skills qualify them for the top two spots is part of this debate.

 

[kmad]

Seems tragic that a goalie with the name Jack Norris was never a superstar. That's such a great hockey name.

 

[Killion]

Seems tragic that a goalie with the name Jack Norris was never a superstar. That's such a great hockey name.

yep. Parris Duffus. Yutaka Fukufuji. Real shame about those guys as well. Nifty handles.

 

[Hardyvan123]

Thats a fair question; a Puckmetrician will work within a conceptual pardigm that strongly influences the way in which they both see & interpret data. Due to the completely random nature of the game of hockey, ad hoc hypotheses are created by said practioners to compensate, which results in erroneous conclusions, falsification. The Puckmetrician then going to great lengths to defend their heterodoxical theories.

Mathematics & statistical data allows for elegant & economical statement, however, when a pardigm or model upon which conclusions are based is fundamentally flawed, the theorist then proceeding to argue against naturalists & holistic members here on the History of Hockey Board, telling us that their flawed theories supercede our own observations & experiences, that either individually or collectively our Empirical & Intuitive Knowledge is faulty, suffering from biases, a lack of objectivity & therefore intellectually deceitful, well, thats just the height of hypocrisy, arrogance. Ive always pretty much rejected the Quine-Putnam Indispensability argument of Mathematical Realism. Prefer to rely on real life experiences, my own eyes & ears.

So in other words due to the random nature of the game, hockey stats are less valuable than say in other sports and you trust your eyeball judgment to make value judgments over the technical hocus pocus of stat freaks,right?

For Christmas I suggest buying "the elements of style" the classic writing tool by Strunk and White.

http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-4th-William-Strunk/dp/0205313426

Then again you would lose the artistry of your posts which I'm sure that most enjoy even if they don't understand them.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Eyeballs

So in other words due to the random nature of the game, hockey stats are less valuable than say in other sports and you trust your eyeball judgment to make value judgments over the technical hocus pocus of stat freaks,right?

For Christmas I suggest buying "the elements of style" the classic writing tool by Strunk and White.

http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-4th-William-Strunk/dp/0205313426

Then again you would lose the artistry of your posts which I'm sure that most enjoy even if they don't understand them.

Eyeballs are constants over the last sixty plus years.

Other sports? Okay. FB uses snaps or percentage of total offensive or defensive unit snaps as a metric. Hockey uses TOI with efforts at ETOI. Why is TOI a better mettric that total or percentage of total FOID, FOIN, FOIO, Faceoffs on Ice defensive, neutral, offensive zone faceoffs used? The most critical plays have their roots at a faceoff. Eyeballs and numbers become blended.

Gladly move this to its own thread. Point is using the best available metric.

 

[Killion]

So in other words due to the random nature of the game, hockey stats are less valuable than say in other sports and you trust your eyeball judgment to make value judgments over the technical hocus pocus of stat freaks,right?

I like to combine the two Hv.... and thanks for the compliment, I think, that I decided to edit.

 

[VanIslander]

Hasek was always a groove oriented goalie. He needed to play a lot and face a lot of shots to really be at his best. So playing spot duty as a back-up and in practice would simply not show him at his best.

As a Buffalo fan I was always more comfortable when he faced a dozen shots early than only a few in the first period. After twenty saves he seemed to double in efficiency. I'd love to see some number crunching on it, but he certainly seemed to get better and better with a heavier workload!!

Very few goalies had a 'Bring it on' attitude. Ryan Miller does in today's NHL. Not many others.

 

[kmad]

As a Buffalo fan I was always more comfortable when he faced a dozen shots early than only a few in the first period. After twenty saves he seemed to double in efficiency. I'd love to see some number crunching on it, but he certainly seemed to get better and better with a heavier workload!!

Very few goalies had a 'Bring it on' attitude. Ryan Miller does in today's NHL. Not many others.

Luongo fits the bill. Compare his numbers with Florida and with the 06/07 Canucks vs his numbers since the Canucks became a contending team.

 

[MarkusNaslund19]

Luongo fits the bill. Compare his numbers with Florida and with the 06/07 Canucks vs his numbers since the Canucks became a contending team.

Curtis Joseph seemed to have this on a broader scale as well. On teams that gave up lot's of shots he would be the difference maker that would give them a chance to win. However, on teams that didn't give up as many shots/as many quality chances (like Detroit), his play suffered.

 

[Sturminator]

... thats not enough, games played, basic stats, avg size of players etc. You need specifics. Hardcore. Youd require a broad & far reaching range of criteria & components to accurately gauge what common sense and experience can tell you with far greater accuracy in a fraction of the time it would take you to formulate even the foundations for such an exercise. And even when completed, wide open to challenge. Its just futile to even contemplate such a thing. I mean, how long is a piece of string?

While I agree that a mathematical proof with a Q.E.D. at the end would be nigh impossible from a methodological perspective, this doesn't preclude us from gathering some rough evidence which could at least suggest a correlation without making a claim to absolute proof. seventies was simply asking you to provide some statistical indication that what you claim is true, not calculate the bloody moon landing. Freaking out at a deterministic straw man of your own creation is just a bizarre reaction to a perfectly reasonable demand.

I think you grossly overrate the accuracy and reliability of "common sense and experience", especially as pertains to judgment based on memory, and at any rate I doubt that your purported correlation here has anything to do with experience. If it did, then you should be able to immediately cite a few examples which illuminate the point, no?

 

[Canadiens1958]

Funny

While I agree that a mathematical proof with a Q.E.D. at the end would be nigh impossible from a methodological perspective, this doesn't preclude us from gathering some rough evidence which could at least suggest a correlation without making a claim to absolute proof. seventies was simply asking you to provide some statistical indication that what you claim is true, not calculate the bloody moon landing. Freaking out at a deterministic straw man of your own creation is just a bizarre reaction to a perfectly reasonable demand.

I think you grossly overrate the accuracy and reliability of "common sense and experience", especially as pertains to judgment based on memory, and at any rate I doubt that your purported correlation here has anything to do with experience. If it did, then you should be able to immediately cite a few examples which illuminate the point, no?

This is funny.

Awhile back,Taco produced a fascinating study of Dominik Hasek's superior sense of Vertical Angles. An effort that required a high level of effort visually, mathematically and game film forensics.

The only posters who seem to appreciate this effort and understand the results are the traditionalists who snap their fingers and conclude "of course what my experience and common sense told me with geometry and numbers added to further support
and explain."

Have any Puckmetricians embarked on similar studies as Taco did with Dominik Hasek to advance other areas of interest about individual players, teams or the game of hockey? Haven't seen anything close. A lot of playing with numbers, re-arranging, but nothing nearly as seminal as the Hasek study referenced.

 

[Sturminator]

Traditionalists used to claim that common sense tells us the earth is flat. I mean, just look at it. It's obviously not a big sphere.

Hockey is difficult to analyse scientifically because it is an extremely dynamic team sport, and there is a large degree of chaos and luck involved at the point where the rubber meets the net. We have good reason to be skeptical of "player raters" and other such metrics which try to account for all variables of player performance, because we can see with our own eyes that they are missing or oversimplifying large parts of the game. Nevertheless, simple assertions like "big defensemen help starting goalies play more games" should be at least roughly demonstrable if they are, in fact, true.

The problem here is not Killion's skepticism, in general, but rather his jargon-filled overstatement of the difficulties in isolating variables in regards to this specific problem.